Saturday, June 30, 2012

Community

Community.

This is timely.

During the fires in Boulder, I was touched by a strong sense of community. Sometimes offers of help come from places one doesn't expect. Since my mom's operations, I've been staying off and on with her, helping out when I can. Even when I'm not staying with her, I stop over daily to check on her. During the fire, I was with her, and I was completely blown away by how concerned our neighbors were. Then again, my mom is a pretty cool lady, so it's not a big surprise that people were checking in on her. I hate that it sometimes takes a disaster to bring out community support, but I feel pretty lucky to be living in this area of the world. Sure there are quite a few people who are too self centered to make an effort, but most of the people I know are the opposite.

This might be a little bit of a tangent, but lately I hear quite a lot about how important it is to get needs met. "Don't get involved, save yourself, get away with your negative vibes, you're bumming me out!" Oddly, the people who tend to say things like that are generally the same people who insist that we are all one; everyone and everything is connected. When push comes to shove though, these are the very people who are often too self absorbed to give a crap. Of course, this is only my observation with a random selection of people, but it has made enough of an impression that I feel the need to write about it. I think it comes back to the idea that sometimes when people ferociously claim to be a certain way, they often end up being the opposite.

I'm flat out exhausted tonight. It has been a super long week, and I have to say that I'm glad I'm at the end of this blogging challenge. I'm also glad I completed it.

What I learned by bogging daily:

1. I should be writing more. I waste a ton of time doing nothing productive, and while I often struggled to write each day during the month of June, I did it. That means that my other two projects shouldn't be as neglected as they have been.

2. Blogging daily is something I don't really like to do. It may sound strange, but I'm a private person. There are days I need to be alone. Blogging forces me to be out and somewhat connected, and, as I explained in a previous post, I don't like inflicting certain moods on others. All things considered, I did the best I could, despite struggling a bit this month.

3. For those who make a habit of blogging, I wonder how much it interferes with daily living. There are people who post multiple times a day, for fuck's sake! HOW? This really makes me wonder, as I found it quite time consuming to write just one post per day.

I'm a bit all over the place with my thoughts tonight and well off topic, but I'll continue..

As I was walking to my car after work this evening, I noticed a guy at a restaurant taking a picture of his half eaten meal. His two dining companions patiently waited for him to finish. I assume this was a shot for facebook or a blog post. I still can't get over the fact that people get all excited seeing someone's meal on the computer. It's just weird. When I'm out to eat with people, I want to focus on the conversation and the food. I will admit that I find some gourmet food photography to be beautiful, but this was a fucking sandwich that wasn't anything extraordinary. I guess there's a fine line. I can see posting pictures of a fancy meal, a wonderfully prepared dinner or something home cooked that took some effort to make. Someone eating alone and wanting to share the experience with others by sharing on facebook I get too. However, I don't see how people get stimulated looking at some fruit in a bowl with a bit of yogurt, a half-eaten, humdrum sandwich or a lunch that looks like someone's pet poodle pooped on a plate. Seriously, there are some nasty photographs of food out there. Why people want to share some of these terrible looking concoctions is beyond me. I sort of want to get a camera, just so I can assemble the perfect mock post. I'm probably too lazy to do that, but the thought has crossed my mind.

Uggh. It's almost the deadline, and I don't know where I was going with this. The computer I'm using is giving me trouble, so I am going to have to just up and quit here. I probably should have gone into how important community is in recovery. It helps to have a team. Unfortunately, that might have to wait.

Sigh.

Wow. Today I accidentally used less instead of fewer in a conversation. Now, I'm much more careful when I write, but based on the reaction I got, I don't think I will be making that mistake again. I did read that long, long ago, less was used in place of fewer, but that's no longer the case. Apparently it's quite the no-no these days. It seems to be a bigger faux pas than responding with "good" instead of "well" when asked how one is doing. Everyone has a pet peeve though. Mine is incorrectly saying, "between you and I."